In recent years due to the rapid development of multimedia, digital, audio and video communication applications, there is a necessity for efficient and reliable signal modulation and demodulation techniques to accommodate different modulation formats chosen based on the media over which the signals are to be transmitted.
For instance, with respect to high definition television, and in fact other types of advanced television transmissions, program material in video, data or audio form is formatted by a channel encoder so as to be transmittable by Vestigial Side Band modulation or VSB which is typical for over-the-air television transmissions. On the other hand, Quadrature Amplitude Modulation or QAM is typically used for cable transmission, whereas Quadrature Phase Shift Keying or QPSK is generally used in satellite communication. Finally, discrete multitone or DMT techniques are typically used for telephone landline signaling such as with Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines or ADSL.
It will be appreciated that when a video source at the transmit side is encoded through a source coding unit, the source coding unit is set up to code the video source material in one of the four above-mentioned modulation formats. Likewise, on the receive side, in order for a receiver to decode all of the abovementioned formats discrete VLSI chips or detectors can be provided in parallel, with the outputs going to source decoding.
It will be readily apparent that because there is presently no universal modulation format, receivers destined to be utilized not only for over-the-air transmissions, but also for cable must at least have the capability of decoding the appropriate modulation format. While it is possible to use a parallel brute force approach by merely providing the receive side with a series of demodulators each configured to demodulate a particular format, this approach is costly and error-prone.
As to the parallel approach mentioned above, it is possible to design a modem in which the input signal is fed from the RF-IF stage of the receiver in parallel to each of four demodulators, with the output of each demodulator being switched to source decoding depending on the modulation format of the received signal. Modulation format can be determined in some instances by the channel to which the receiver is tuned, although this can vary from country to country.
For instance, in the United States, for VHF channels 1-13 and UHF channels, VSB modulation is used, with the VSB demodulator switched to source decoding. For the cable channels, generally over Channel 68, QAM modulation is used, with the output of the QAM demodulator switched to source decoding. For satellite channels, QPSK modulation is used, with the QPSK demodulator switched to source decoding, whereas for telephone line usage, assuming a channel indicating landline transmission, it is the DMT output of a demodulator which is switched to source decoding.
This duplication of demodulators aside from being four times the expense of a single demodulator, also has the following problems: First and foremost, it will be appreciated that in order to switch the outputs of the various demodulators to source decoding, the output of the demodulators must have a high impedance to damp switching transients and like anomalies. Secondly, care must be taken to eliminate cross modulation between the different demodulators.
It will thus be appreciated that any parallel processing solution to the problem of multiple modulation formats generally resolves itself into a question of the cost associated with duplicating demodulators and technical complexity which is indeed a factor in mass marketed multimedia receivers for which such demodulator cost duplication and complexity is unacceptable.
On the transmit side, for multimedia transmissions requiring different modulation formats, duplicating modulators are likewise expensive and error-prone in much the same way as described above with respect to demodulators. Also, with specialty services such as data to be provided on different channels, oftentimes the modulation format is different from that of the main transmission. To provide such additional services ordinarily would require separate modulators having the expected cost impact.